


No Return To Honor

by Taschi



Category: Original Work
Genre: Mecha, Military Science Fiction, Other, Science Fiction, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 06:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2611610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taschi/pseuds/Taschi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Technology changes, politics never do. A minor conflict between the USA and Russia spirals out of control. A new weapon, the Bipedal Assault Platform, will only make war more deadly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Return To Honor

Doctor Corra wasn't nervous very often. Her coolheadedness was part of the reason why she became Lead Engineer on a major military R&D project at merely thirty-five years, and without her always staying on top of things no matter what minor or major problem her team faced, their project would never have been finished on schedule.

That being said, Doctor Corra was nervous like hell today. You don't get to present the result of two years of hard work to some major USMC bigwigs every day. She glanced at the touchscreen strapped to her left forearm, like she had ten, maybe fifteen times in the past five minutes. She sat in a small conference room, a glass of water in front of her. Corra's assistant, Liz, was there with her, and her boss, the Lead Project Manager, Doctor Ashton, was supposed to be. Of course, he couldn't be bothered to show up on time even for such an important meeting.

Aside from that, three men in uniforms were present. She remembered speaking to one of them before in one of the oversight meetings - Hayes, his name was -, but neither of the other two were familiar. The insignia on their shoulders and the number of medals on their chests indicated they were really important people. An overhead projector displayed some words on the wall:

BIPEDAL ASSAULT PLATFORM

PROTOTYPE PRESENTATION

March 17th, 2085

Aside from the silent wheezing of the projector, the room was filled with an awkward and uncomfortable silence. Corra checked her touchscreen again, to see if time had somehow stopped completely. It hadn't, and the whole thing should be starting in about a minute. Ashton still wasn't there. Figures.

Her nervosity went down a little when there was a brief knock at the door exactly one minute later. Ashton entered, put a "Do not disturb" sign on the door and said, chipper as ever, "Good morning, everybody. General", he added with a nod to one of the uniformed guys. "Let's get you all familiar with each other, shall we? General Devin, USMC, General Parish, US Army, Chief Warrant Officer Hayes, USMC, and from Brighter HiTek, we have Doctor Corra, our lead engineer, her assistant and myself, Doctor Ashton. I'm sure your time is precious, so let's not waste any of it and get right to the subject matter of this meeting."

He went on for a couple of minutes about spirit of innovation, the importance of a modern military, the virtues of public-private partnerships and some other stuff nobody in the room particularly cared about, including Ashton himself. "Today, this project has reached its first major milestone, as we can present a working prototype showcasing those components we have already developped, serving as a proof of concept and helping us to reality-check our development so far. Doctor Corra will take you through the features of the prototype step by step, and then we will go down to the hangar so you can see the prototype for yourself. No live presentation today, I'm afraid, for security reasons, but I hope we will get the prototype on a training area for that really soon. Doctor Corra, your turn."

Corra stood up and went to the wall where the projector still showed everybody what the meeting was about, in case they forgot it already. "So, um..." She fiddled with the touchscreen on her arm to bring up her own slideshow. "The Bipedal Assault Platform, Mark One. Please keep in mind that this is not a combat-ready platform but merely a demonstrator and that getting it into combat will require more refinement to many, many components."

Her first slide showed a technical drawing of something that looked vaguely like a car on legs, with a big cannon on top. The dimensioning gave its height as about four meters. "With this prototype, we put speed, ease of transport and a good view over crew protection and strong armament, with about two centimeters of classic composite armor all around, except for the security glass windscreen - something that does not belong on a tank or similar, as you know. We have some armor concepts in planning, both with thicker composite armor and capacitator shields, and with a more active protection concept that relies on not getting hit above all else."

She wiped up her left arm without even looking, and the next slide showed a chunky black block next to a big yellow cylinder. Her nervosity had completely gone away. This was something she could do. "So, the whole thing is powered by this high-capacity accumulator and a bunch of these servo engines we developped ourselves for the heavy-duty leg joints and the weapon turret. There's a two-plus-one computer system, meaning everything is calculated on three computers at the same time to prevent failure due to hardware errors, which controls the thirteen engines in the prototype. One of the biggest problems in the development of this prototype was keeping the balance, even in heavy terrain or on steep slopes. As the specification book requires climbing slopes of up to 60 degrees, this wasn't easy, but our software developpers have put a lot of effort into this and our models have exceeded all our expectations. I'm confident the prototype will also meet the requirements."

Another wipe brought up a detailed sketch of the cannon turret, on top of the crew compartment. "This is the turret-mounted rail gun, obviously. It operates with shells of 50 to 90 millimeters, and the smallest armor-piercing shells can reach a muzzle velocity of up to 2.5 kilometers per hour. It's not our own development but was provided by the USMC, where it has already been tested a lot, so our main concern was integrating it into the BAP Mk I. As you know, good old Newton said that action equals reaction, so we have to compensate for the shell's recoil somehow, and we can't even rely on muzzle brake. Some of the recoil is taken up by a barrel brake, but that can't compensate for all of it. So most of the recoil energy goes right into the chassis and is caught by the leg joints, and the computer can then rebalance the BAP."

After this short overview, she went on to explain some of the finer details of the technical solutions, from loading mechanisms to the cockpit design. Almost an hour later, she ended her talk and, feeling slightly hoarse, asked "Any questions?"

Indeed, the Army general had one: "This is a four meters tall robot. Where do you see the advantages over classic tanks and hovertanks and how would you prevent it from being taken out in the blink of an eye?"

That was a hard question for Corra, who had no relation to the military. Brighter HiTek was thinking about civilian applications for the BAP technology, like search and rescue in mountain areas, but military research was where the big money was.

"Um, I am not really a military expert", she replied, "but I guess the main advantage is the higher mobility in hard terrain while still having enough payload for heavy weaponry. Our BAP Mk I could reach places where nobody would expect enemy fire from, and where a ground counterattack would be rather hard. We have also considered a possibility to make the BAP go into a crouch, giving it a size comparable to a tank and hiding the legs behind armored skirts because they are, admittedly, a weak point. But, from what I know, it isn't the goal of the BAP project to replace tanks, but merely to provide another weapons system in a force fighting with Combined Arms."

"Thank you, Doctor."

"Any further questions?" Corra's question was met with silence and headshakes. Ashton stood up and said, "Okay then, let's go to the hangar so you can look at it with your own eyes."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this far! Just a bit of experimentation on my part, because I really wanted to try and just get something written and published. Getting over my own fears seems to be the hardest part of it.
> 
> I hope you liked it. It is going to take some rather heavy inspiration from BattleTech and some other Mecha stuff I've read/watched/played, but more in a deconstructive way and without taking any elements from these canons (aside from big stompy robots), so I didn't feel like pretending it was a BT fanfiction.
> 
> I'm a newcomer author and not a native speaker, so please be gentle. Especially when I mix up AE and BE...


End file.
